Well, some masks cost more than others. I suggest watching all 4 parts, as it's an excellent tale. Normally, masks are meant to hide who we are, not show the truth inside.

The truth is, the iconic mask from Donnie Darko is just Frank's Halloween costume. Who knows why he chose an evil rabbit, but there it is. I'm also disappointed that Donnie's girlfriend fell asleep before the movie started, but I'm sure that's a plot-point. It's nice of Frank to whisper to keep from waking her.

Hockey mask, not that exciting. It's not the mask itself, but how it's used that makes a masked killer entertaining. Both Michael and Jason are your strong, silent types, so the mask doesn't have to be that big a deal.

And for those of you playing at home, Kevin Bacon.

Ghostface isn't the quiet type. I can't watch any of these without thinking of Scary Movie. To be honest, I haven't watched either all the way through. I'm sure they can't be that much alike.

OK, let me tell you a little about this movie. It's a strong premise that starts off very well, has likable characters (except the female lead), and some great writing. That's the movie you start with; it's not the same movie by the end.

Leslie is an ebullient, outgoing, and affable slasher-in-training. He's having fun and you have fun watching him as he goes through the steps necessary to create a typical slasher flick. He's got a wonderful mentor (now retired) who talks about how "the industry" changed. The mentor has a wonderful wife who, from what we gather, is a "survivor girl" herself (named Jamie, oddly enough). Robert Englund plays Leslie's "Ahab", does a wonderful Donald Plesance impersonation, and is named after the cook in The Shining.

It's not a great film because of where it decides to go, but it is fun. I'd suggest watching it and trying to figure out all the little Easter-eggs in the flick.

The title "Behind The Mask" has been used numerous times before. For a comedy, even.

I'm going to leave everyone with this, as it's a fun mask story.

There's a sequel, The Scream of the Haunted Mask. I know because I finished recording an audio-book of that not too long ago for a group that does books for the blind. I need to find out if there's already a recording on file for the first book, just so I can record that as well.

So, now that you've seen all that...what was your mask going to be tonight?

As a study of How People Thought in the 50s, this is a great fable. The two main characters are divorcees (scandal!). It's a huge allegory for how anyone could be an America-hating commie, so we have to stay on guard at all time.

Replacing our loved ones (Capgras syndrome) isn't all these doppelgangers can do. They also appeal to our fear of losing our own identities (syndrome of subjective doubles). We're afraid of losing our lives, just in a different sense.

No, it's not a ghost story, but it is a very scary film. Strangely enough, though you could never tell by watching it, the twins are played by actual twins. They never appear in the same shot, which might lead you to believe otherwise.

This time, the fear is of industrialization. Computers were just starting to take over our lives at this time, and there was a dehumanizing process at work. It really did feel like that!

Again, the fear of loss of identity. And DAMN that I can't get a copy of this in the States! I remember when I first saw it as a kid and how terrifying it was, that someone could...possess someone else like that.

The clones themselves are actual sweethearts once they find out what the deal is. I say sweethearts; I mean vengeful harpies. It's great.

Actually, this reminds me of a story about a guy who actually did manage to clone himself (very illegal), but there was something wrong with the tank or something, because the clone had a terrible case of Tourette's. Of course, the clone looked just like the guy, so people were coming after him for the foul language "he" had used around them. Eventually, the guy was so fed up, he pushed the clone off a bridge.

He was arrested later for making an obscene clone fall.

Oh no! One of my favorite films has been replaced with a terrible flick filled with explosions! NOT EVEN OUR MOVIES ARE SAFE!

So, they don't even have to be from outer-space to be scary.

They don't even have to be twins. That's just creepy.

Sadly, there was an American version, so it's almost like Hollywood is the Single White Female to every movie out there that's any good.

Also, this happened. Marlyn Monroe was right. It "just wanted to be loved".

To be fair, that's Lon Chaney Junior.

I'd like to think that Andre was not actually the victim of homicide, but "death by misadventure". I also like how this trailer lets to listen to what's in store, which kinda makes it creepier.

This was seriously one of the dumbest movies I've ever watched. I might never forgive SyFy for this mess. It seems to be a common fear: men who become beasts. Kinda helps when the man in question is so beastly.

They aren't always frightening, however.

Meanwhile, women are always scary. This is either justification of the "boy's club" vibe a lot of fandom sends off, or a result of it. I'm thinking it's a combination of the two that results in stories like this.

You have to start with King Kong. It's the classic "giant animal" tale and has been included in the Library of Congress. The Nazi's banned it, so it has to be good.

A box-office smash (RKO's first success), it's the one everyone tried to imitate. Observe:

Wikipedia sez: "Buoyed by the enormous success of King Kong in 1933 and its profitable theatrical reissues in 1938, 1942, and 1946, RKO had great hopes for Mighty Joe Young. Upon its release in 1949, the film was honored with an Academy Award for Special Effects (a category that did not exist in 1933 for King Kong)."

If a giant gorilla is scary, then would could be more terrifying than Them! ?

Nuke it from orbit; that's the only way to be...oh. That's how they got big?

Look out, Canada!

Look out, Mexico!

Look out, England!

Look out, Jap....eh. You guys are used to it.

Ah, big silly monkey. You should not be in Japan. That's where Godzilla lives.

SEE WHAT I MEAN?

The monster is actually a giant snail. And it doesn't challenge the world as much as the Salton Sea and my lunch. Snails are just all...ugh...that's just gross. The worst part of this flick is the instruction video that shows close-ups of real snails eating. I gag just thinking about it.

Although Hans Conred puts in a nice performance here. He's like a proto-Quincy.

I'd say it was the giant bats or giant rats or the giant winged lion that made me include this, but I just wanted you to see this insane thing.

OK, giant rats. They're still scary. Good Halloween costume, if you're of a mind to.

If you go back and watch The Matrix (the first one--the good one), and check out the scene at the Oracle's apartment, this is the movie the kids are watching in the living room.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

There was a remake, actually, of The Blob, and I'll only post a link as opposed to an embed because I find this sort of thing difficult to stomach. Even if it is all stomach. We're more about the fun than the gross.

Not that I'm going to show you the whole movie, but I love these opening credits. I'm also a bit of a sucker for Burt Bacharach tunes and that animation is just mesmerizing.

WHEN GRAPE JELLY ATTACKS!

Make that, when yogurt attacks. I never could stand that stuff as a kid.

I've been thinking about putting together a video podcast for years. So, here's my first attempt. I was inspired by Prevues of Coming Attractions, a blog devoted to movie trailers which, unfortunately, decided to stop early this year. Luckily I've got lots of old movie trailers to share.

First published in 1909, The Phantom of the Opera was written by Gaston Leroux. The silent film is from 1925. Just let that sink in a bit. Our ability to make movies is over 100 years old. This still messes with my head.

Oh, Claude Rains. The man was cast as the Invisible Man because of his wonderful voice. Doesn't it make sense that he'd play a guy in mask?

There was a Chinese version in 1937, but I have not been able to find a good copy.

Oooooo, Michael Gough's in this. Remember him from the Hammer Dracula movie? Of course you don't. You don't even know who Herbert Lom is. That's cool. We can get past that. We've got the Internet.

I have to include this, even though I don't really want to. See, I'm a Dallas girl (Assassination City, born and bred), and a lot of this dreadful movie was filmed in my darling home town. Paul Williams' mansion? That's the county courthouse. The Paradise itself? Why, none other than the old Majestic Theater downtown. I have a permanent, obligatory (albeit small) place in my heart for this dumb movie.

Welp, last Moon-day, we covered werewolf transformations (hyuck hyuck), and Kris mentioned Jekyll & Hyde. The above link is an excellent example of another kind of transformation (see if you can spot all the edits).

DRINK IT, ALREADY!

Hey, there's a mirror. Where's the camera?

It would appear that doing a decent transformation sequence is one of those "wisdom of the ancients" type things, lost through time, like building pyramids, fixing a typewriter, or how to make decent french toast. I've seen similar transformations done in real life and they were more convincing.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Besides the whole "crazy dude that wants to take over the world" aspect, Claude Rains' Invisible Man is someone I would not mind having a beer with. I've worked tech-support. We have many tales of human stupidity to swap.

Smoking jacket. Dude had class.

That's an illustration for the first edition of the H. G. Wells novella. Here, you can read it. It's not very long. That's good on a Sunday afternoon.

What I love the most about these movies is the special effects. It's mostly pantomime from the other actors, but there is that occasional foot-print in the snow, or "miraculously" levitated object.

Check out Sam Neil's awesome pantomime there with the gun-headband. Who knew he could do physical humor?

I want a role-playing game based on insane scientific theories from the 30s. I think a Jacob's ladder gives +5 to kooky-kontraption.

It's also at this point I'm going to be an intellectual snob. The creation is not called Frankenstein, okay? You can call it the creature, or the monster, or even Frankenstein's monster, but it is not called Frankenstein. Let's just get that clear now. Frankenstein was the doctor.

Sorry. Frankenstein.

Despite what you may be thinking, Edison did not plan this as a commercial for delivering electricity to people's homes. But that would have been awesome.

Hey, what's good for the gander is good for the goose, huh? Anyone know when the safety pin was invented? Is that an anachronism?

Awwwww yeah...Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Those guys are in everything.

And I want to personally thank Jorodowsky for giving us that "oil lamp\self-immolation" trope. Thank you so much for the end of El Topo and the image that will not stop.

PS: I wanted to post this on Thursday because it's Thor's day. Lighting! HAHA!

Monday, October 17, 2011

It is tragic--nay, criminal--that a major film about werewolves has not been released that features this song.

Using odd music is nothing new in werewolf films. I'm actually sad I could not find the ballerina transformation from Howling III, as it uses some music from Prokofiev's Cinderella.

Midnight, and Cinderella turns back into herself, and a ballerina turns onto a werewolf on stage with each pirouette. It's a genius sequence in a terrible movie.

With time, our transformations became more sophisticated, i.e.: more gory. I admit that watching this was not that scary for me as I had seen a "making of" on Lights, Camera, Action. This was a mild turning-point in my life as I had to ask, "How did they do that?" instead of just watching the terrible, terrible moments on screen. I was less afraid and more intrigued by the technical aspects of how a thing was done.

Lest we forget that being a werewolf is a curse. It is painful and horrible and turns us into something we are not. It is not desirable at all. It ruins lives and destroys relationships (and throats). The entire idea behind werewolves were they were monsters, yes, but victims as well. They had no control over their transformation. It took control of their lives and dragged them through hell.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Monster High is fairly new, but taps into the time-honored tradition of making a cartoon to sell toys. The dolls are roughly the size of Bratz dolls, but seem to have a little more class.

The Halloween Special embedded above is an introduction to the characters and their world. Personally, I think the school looks a lot more like a community college than a high-school, but it's been years since I've been in either, so things may have changed.

What I really get out of this, more than anything, is how hard high-school really was for some folk. When I started, we were all freshman at our first day in a new school. As it was a magnet school, we came from all over the district and very few knew each other from middle-school. The problems presented in this cartoon are so alien to me that it's hard to relate. I can understand the need to be accepted and a desire to fit in, but the lengths that are gone to here are outside my ken.

But also, thinking about it, I've been saving my "scary" videos for Sundays, and I don't think there's anything scarier than being put in such a situation. Being the new kid is terrifying and trying to break into established cliques is more horrifying than spending a night in a haunted house. I'm sure that for a lot of people, seeing someone else go through it brings back a lot of painful or frightening memories.

Or it's just a goofy cartoon filled with puns that's trying to sell toys. Hard to say.

Personally, I would love to have a ghost that created cold spots in the house. I would never have to deal with a watered down drink again. The ice would never melt!

I love shows like this because they are so darn fun to watch. There's the acting, the special effects, the cinematography...it's great.

I keep waiting for someone to put one together that's just a thinly-veiled "Scooby Doo" cover: handsome guy, pretty girl (the spokespeople), and then nerdy girl as the scientist with all the gadgets and some stoner who's actually a psychic (a la Roddy McDowall in The Legend of Hell House). Psychics, to me, have always come across as kinda flaky, like stoners. Maybe he's blind and needs a seeing-eye dog. It would be a great show.

But, to be honest, the Shaggy character would most likely be the sound guy. When you put together a show like this, it's important that the sound guy always gets hit. He doesn't have a camera, so you never get to see what happened, and it makes for spoooooky sounds. I think CPF has looked carefully at how these videos are put together. I'm all for critical analysis of what they show on TV.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Yeah, I know boys had the creepy crawlers and monster factories, but girls had toys that were genuinely terrifying.

Let's take a look at Jill, who is some kind of prepubescent Single White Female in the making. After hearing for the umpteenth time about how "nice little girls don't get mud on their dresses" and how pretty your Jill doll looks in her dress, you're begging Santa for a "My First Carpentry" set, just on the off chance it may include a claw hammer.

But what is she thirsty for? Your blood, that's what. This is the doll that never sleeps and will always need something. Just what a little girl wants in her life.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Mom and older sister are freaked out, having been properly trained by society to be weak and squeamish. Little sister has not yet been indoctrinated and is thus unafraid. Dad is unimpressed either way.

Man, boys get the best toys, I swear. I'm amazed they didn't girl it up and make one with a mold of little dolls and hearts and pastel colors.

It looks like girls used to be a lot tougher, back in the day. By the 90s, they aren't wearing a spider ring anymore.

Of course, by 2002, boys were invading girl territory when it came to toys. Then they all grew up and started watching Bizarre Foods.

A choking hazard waiting to happen. That's the best kind of toy.

That had better be water-soluble. Tell ya what, champ. Why don't you wait until you go to your mom's this weekend before you play with that bad boy? Naw, your mom's a cool lady. She'll be fine with it.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

In preparation for Halloween, I had promised I would post Halloweeny, spooky, or scary things every day. I'm sorry this one is late, but I've had a hectic week and there was a lot that needed to be done today.

Now, I had considered posting a trailer for the scariest movie I could think of, but it is so disturbing, I thought that might be out of the spirit of things. This is supposed to be fun, not upsetting. (You can view the trailer here, if you dare. As for the film itself, I had trouble getting through it and even more trouble sleeping at night after seeing what I saw.)

But! In the spirit of Halloween, I will post this very important holiday tip:

If there's one sure-fire way to get your house egged, it's giving out Chick-tracts instead of candy. And, for kids, if there's anything worse than the house that gives out raisins, it's the house that hands out Chick-tracts.

This was one of the tapes I wore out as a kid. I think I had missed it when it first showed, but Mom taped it and I watched it over and over again. Finding it now, I sang along with the opening credits. Yeah...still know the words.

Later, it was actually put out on tape. There's no DVD, but I'm sure that it will eventually be released (for a limited time only!) from the Disney vault. I don't know who runs that vault, but they are a real dick about it.

A year later, there was A Disney Halloween, which used large portions from Halloween Treat and Disney's Greatest Villains.

(And yes, I know it was a short clip, but that is Hans Conried as the magic mirror. What a fine and distinctive voice.)

Friday, October 07, 2011

Just a snippet today, from a claymation special that freaked me out as a kid.

Twain wrote multiple versions of the The Mysterious Stranger, each unfinished and involving the character of "Satan". The story ends abruptly in the middle of a scene, suggesting Twain died before he finished writing it.

On Halloween, traditionally, we dress up like devils and witches and vampires and other evil things. We do that to mock the evil. We aren't afraid of the thin time of All Hollows Eve. We carve out pumpkins and put fires in them for the souls in Purgatory. Summer is over and the dead celebrate. The nights have become longer than the days. Evil must be kept at bay.

And here's a bit of music from the Orchestre National de Barbes. Barbés is an Algerian neighborhood in Paris, a refuge for exiles who could tell you a thing or two about evil in the world.

Witch's Night Out is so Canadian it hurts. Not only was it shot in a Toronto Studio, it's got Dan Aykroyd, Vlari Bromfield, and Catherine O'Hara. Honestly, my favorite part is the sound the broom makes.

I don't have much to say that can't be answered by watching this flick. Here's a song from the 70s about a witch.

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

"Monster Mash" is a 1962 novelty song and the best-known song by Bobby "Boris" Pickett. This version is presented by the Groovie Goolies, and I'm not going to admit I watched that religiously every Saturday morning.

Bobby Pickett did several follow-up tunes to this, including (but not limited to) the Monster's Holiday.

The thing that really helps along the "Monster Mash" is Bobby's imitation of Boris Karloff. That's part of why this next track is so great.

That's Boris on an episode of Shindig, a dance show. Sadly, there's no video if it, but here he is doing the Peppermint Twist.

Yesterday, I was going to do a whole thing on the "Monster Mash", but I was distracted by Mad Monster Party. Here's why (poor video):

Finally, I leave you with this: Vincent Price in the difficult-to-watch Monster Club

EDIT:

@tweetheart4711 reminds me: "The other great version was by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, fronted by the fabulous Viv Stanshall."

I'm just going to say I'm an absolute sucker when it comes to stop-action animation. You put on some Jan Svankmajer or Brothers Quay and I am going to be glued to the screen the entire time. It's from watching movies like Mad Monster Party (or the special effects of Ray Harryhausen or George Pal) that got me started.

I'm not going to post all of Mad Monster Party here, as it is available for rental (and instant view!), but I do have a making-of documentary here, with part two. If you want to know what it took to get a movie like this made, and its ties to Japan, you WILL watch this documentary. It is well worth it.

Sunday, October 02, 2011

Last year, we did the "Tunes of Doom" counting down to that fateful and spooky day. We'll be doing similar this year, but we're going to mix it up with more videos, ghost stories, links to creeeeepy things. I meant to get this up yesterday, but a tree branch, a phone line, and the laws of gravity had decided otherwise.